Social media offers sweet revenge for bad service

Plus: Tips on how to get a company’s attention

CHICAGO (MarketWatch)—If you’re tired of being treated poorly by retailers, airlines and other service-industry types, take revenge via social media. You will get heard, and get action.

“There is a tremendous echo in social-media channels,” said Thomas Sclafani, a spokesman for American Express, which found in a recent survey that consumers who use social media to get a company’s attention wield a much bigger stick than those who don’t.

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That’s because, beyond the broader audience who might see a complaint on, say, Facebook or Twitter, people who use social media to voice their discontent are much likelier to also talk to people directly about the problem, compared with someone who simply calls the customer-service center.

Social media-ites, according to the American Express survey, will directly tell 53 people about bad customer-service experiences, who will tell their friends who will tell their friends and so on.

Those who don’t use social media tell only 17 people they’re unhappy with a service, compared with the 24 people that the general population tells.

The same is true for good experiences, by the way. Social-media users tell 42 people they were thrilled with some service versus the nine people told by those who don’t use social media and the 15 people with whom the general population confides.

Overwhelmingly, consumers still take the traditional face-to-face and phone route to speak to real, live people to make complaints, according to American Express’s annual Global Customer Service Barometer. But they’re getting better results when they amplify that complaint on a widely used social-media site like Facebook or Twitter.

Success stories

Call it the power of the people online. It manifested late last year when Molly Katchpole, the then-22-year-old part-time nanny took on the mighty Bank of America’s efforts to tag $5 debit-card fees on customers.

The 300,000-strong signatures on her Change.org petition—not to mention the scores of unsigned sympathizers—forced the nation’s largest bank and its competitors to back off from charging people to spend their own money.

She did it again when Verizon attempted to levy a $2 online-payment fee. More than 130,000 signatures made it to that petition in 24 hours, and the company backed down.

There have been other outrages publicized via social media. Take the Canadian songwriter who came up against United Airlines when it wouldn’t cover his $3,500 guitar that was broken by baggage handlers. His humorous protest “United Breaks Guitars” went viral on YouTube and prompted United to give him a one-time licensing fee to use his video in its customer-service training.

Social networks are the quintessential platform for self-expression. They lure you to share tidbits, both big and small, about yourself, your life and your experiences. People read those and react to them.

The beauty of it, experts noted, is that you don’t have to be rich or famous to get heard and to sway public opinion.

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